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Should the state exercise eminent domain power in its effort to build a border wall? Sound off below in the One Click Survey!

Here is the Texas Minute for Monday, April 24, 2023.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

EXPOSED, Season 5: Border Invasion

• Episode 1 (The Flood) and Episode 2 (The New Coyotes) are available now. The remaining episodes will be released weekly on Monday mornings.

Lawmaker: Legislature A Failure If Gender Mutilation is Not Resolved

• Republicans in the legislature will have failed to protect children if gender mutilation is not "properly resolved," according to State Rep. Briscoe Cain (R-Deer Park). As Soli Rice reports, he made those comments following the explosive revelations found in a new documentary.
   
• An investigation by Project Veritas has exposed healthcare workers encouraging and providing gender mutilation surgeries and cross-sex hormones to children across the country. One of those featured was Nora Scott, a licensed social worker at Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin, Texas.
      
• “We do have patients who are starting [to transition] as young as 8 or 9. So, we do have folks on the younger side,” Scott told the undercover interviewer.
      
• A few appointments may be required to figure out if puberty blockers should be used, but often it is found appropriate to prescribe puberty blockers after one appointment, Scott explained to the interviewer.
      
• “If this issue is not properly resolved by the Texas legislature by December 31 of this year, my party will have failed to protect young Texans from those who seek to profit of off harming them," wrote Rep. Cain on social media.
      
• Of course, his "party" will not have failed... It will be the failure of "Republicans" serving in the Texas House.

Senate Axes Tenure To Fight 'Woke' Higher Ed Push

• Marking the passage of yet another legislative priority for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the Texas Senate has advanced legislation ending the practice of awarding tenure to professors in state-funded colleges and universities. Darrell Frost has the details.

     

• While the legislation would bar public schools from awarding tenure going forward, it would not strip tenure from those who have already received it.

         
• The bill is part of a legislative package that aims to address concerns about social engineering and political indoctrination in the state’s institutions of higher education.
       
• Patrick praised the Senate for passing “the strongest pushback on woke policies in higher education nationwide.”

Parents Want 'Opt-In' Requirement For School Psychological Testing

• Parents showed up at the Capitol last week in support of proposed legislation that would require parental consent before children could be subjected by schools to any psychological testing, including mental health surveys. Erin Anderson has the details.
      

• Since the 2019 Legislature saddled schools with expanded responsibility for students’ mental health, public schools are increasingly administering invasive online “social emotional learning” surveys and “check-ins” that attempt to assess students’ mental and psychological well-being.
      

• Over time, parents have become more and more concerned about the content of the psychosocial evaluations, many of which solicit personal and private information from children, as well as what schools are doing with the information collected.
      

• Legislation filed in the House and Senate would address those concerns by requiring school districts to obtain written parental consent before subjecting a student to any psychological or psychiatric exam, test, or survey.
      

• Of particular concern is the onslaught of daily emotional check-ins that schools are having students do with an “app” purchased by the school districts that uses emojis to gauge a student’s mental health. The data is fed to and analyzed by the app’s creator, a for-profit outside technology company called RHITHM, which then – based on the responses – sends an online game or activity that will teach an "essential life skill."
      

• Reading and math skills are declining, but outside tech companies get to collect psychological profiles on children... You can see why parents are concerned.

Sex Ed: Teachers Behaving Criminally

• Two more Texas public school teachers have been arrested and charged with crimes involving children.
     

• Ruben Francisco Martin, 29, a teacher and assistant wrestling coach at Trinity High School in Hurst-Euless-Bedford Independent School District, is accused of having an improper relationship with a 16-year-old female student. Local police warn “more victims could exist.”
     
• The Texas Penal Code defines an improper relationship as a primary or secondary school employee engaging in either sexual contact with a student of any age or sexually explicit communication with anyone younger than 17 years of age.
      
• Meanwhile, a recent Teacher of the Year at Camey Elementary in the Lewisville Independent School District has been arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old student. The teacher, John Collett, was nominated last year for Best Teacher in Denton County.
       

• Collett has been charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child, a first-degree felony, and indecency with a child by sexual contact, a second-degree felony. He faces 99 years in prison is convicted.

ONE CLICK SURVEY

State Sen. Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe) has proposed legislation allowing Texas to exercise its powers of eminent domain to build a wall along the border with Mexico.

Do you think eminent domain authority should be used so the state can build a border wall?

Once you’ve clicked an answer, reply to this email with any thoughts you’d like to share!